The Bui hydropower project: meeting Ghana’s energy needs with China’s help

The world has been transfixed by China’s spectacular rise from an agrarian backwater nation to a global economic, military and financial powerhouse. With its newfound financial heft, China has thrown its weight around the world, provoking angst and controversy. And nowhere has China’s presence and engagement been more scrutinized, analyzed and criticized than in Africa where it is rebuilding infrastructure and providing other types of assistance to agriculture, water, health, education, and other sectors. There are two competing narratives about China in Africa. One narrative frequently focuses on pessimistic assertions about the exploitative aspects of the engagement and depicts China as a marauding invader plundering Africa’s resources and destroying the continent’s pristine environment. The counter narrative rejects the notion that China’s foray into Africa is neither neocolonialist in nature nor is it spurred purely by its insatiable desire to exploit Africa’s boundless natural resources. This view stresses that China’s development model is inspirational and worthy of emulation by African countries plagued by poverty and weak economies. It contends that China uses an approach that is based on fair trade solidarity and is challenging the so-called Washington Consensus through the establishment of an economic footprint in Africa. The dissertation explores the ever-intensifying relations between Ghana and China as a window into assessing China-Africa relations. The dissertation uses the Bui Hydropower dam construction in Ghana funded by China and built by a Chinese state-owned firm as case study. I used a variety of methods to collect data for this project and relied on policy documents, speeches and media reports on Africa-China and Ghana-China relations to source data. role in bringing the Bui Dam into reality was pivotal; the dam was constructed to bring electricity to sections of the country that lie outside the reach of the national electrical grid. And like Ghana, African countries prefer to have China finance their infrastructural projects rather than their traditional partners who insist on conditionalities that China ignores. China should not be seen as the dominant partner in its relations with Africa. China’s relations with Africa are a partnership characterized by dynamic interactions and influence.